Send me email updates about messages I've received on the site and the latest news from The CafeMom Team.
By signing up, you certify that you are female and accept the Terms of Service and have read the
Privacy Policy.

Forcing Reading

I was just reading a post and it got me thinking about my daughter. She is 11 years old and we just started homeschooling her this year. She excels in Math (she is doing 8th grade Algebra), she likes science, she is a very hands on type of girl. She is creating another website, Crystal's Christmas around the World (hopefully many of you have gone to it and please leave a message to encourage her). Every time I say it's reading time, she huffs and puffs. She even huffs and puffs when she is doing the research for her website, but she does it and honestly she takes her time and really reads. But for her to sit down with a book, it doesn't happen often. I have tried to find books that may interest her, but nothing really makes her want to read. My older daughter, who is in high school/college, never liked to read either, but because of her school she HAS to. She has found books she likes and will read to complete the project, but then will wait until another project before reading again. I hope that made sense.

So my question is, do I force her to read or do I just let things work the way they have been? Let her continue to do her reading when she researches? Her vocabulary is pretty good actually and spelling is okay too.

My oDD did not like reading until we started homeschooling 2 years ago. She despised it, was several arbitrary "grade levels" behind in terms of her assignments, but was testing consistently high, so it was a very obvious case of "bored, don't like it, not gonna do it."

She didn't read books for months when we started homeschooling and I didn't make her. All she wanted to do was science. Of course I neglected to point out to her that she was reading loads in the pursuit of doing science, when she would defiantly announce, "I didn't do any reading today!"

Now she has 5 or 6 books going at any given time. Once she realized no one was making her read, she started doing it for pleasure. It does wane occasionally, sometimes she'll go weeks without reading a book, but then she goes back to it.

I don't think she was ever opposed to reading itself. She loved books before she went to school. I think she was opposed to being forced and commanded to read. Something that she believed (rightly so) should be for pleasure, personal gain, and knowledge, was turned into something forced and filled with stress, resentment and unhappiness. Once that association was taken away, she started liking it again.

Send me email updates about messages I've received on the site and the latest news from The CafeMom Team.
By signing up, you certify that you are female and accept the Terms of Service and have read the
Privacy Policy.